Wednesday, January 24, 2018

‘Comedy of Terrors’ Creating Real Problems for Moscow

Paul
Goble

Staunton, January 24 – Armand Iannuci’s
new British film, The Death of Stalin: A
Comedy of Terrors, is presenting some real problems for the Russian
authorities. On the one hand, banning the film will only attract more views to
it online if not in theaters and make “banned in Moscow” almost as much a
selling point as “banned in Boston” used to be in the US.

Novaya gazeta today reported that the
Russian culture ministry after initially giving the green light to the showing
of “The Death of Stalin” backed off after getting clear signals from
Kremlin-controlled media that Russians or at least those who claim to speak for
them view it as an insult to their country (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/01/23/75236-smert-stalina-otlozhit
).

But
that decision only made the situation of the authorities more untenable, Russian
Orthodox and nationalist writers said.Igor Romanov of the Bereg Rus
portal said that this decision, coming on the heels on one allowing the
scandalous film about the love life of the last tsar, Nicholas II, was the real
insult (beregrus.ru/?p=10699).

Allowing “Mathilda,” he said, showed
that the authorities in Moscow were prepared to spit on the Russian people.
Showing “The Death of Stalin” would have been yet another case of that.But by allowing the first but not the second,
“the authorities chose which [insult] involved the larger consequences.”

“The decision,” he said, “was taken
not on spiritual or moral bases but by a simple calculation of political
consequences.For the holy tsar,” these
officials appear to think, “people would pray and then go home. But for Stalin,
they might decide to throw a Molotov cocktail at theaters.”

And the editors of Russkaya liniya, a prominent Orthodox
and Russian nationalist site, declared that what happened this week shows that “Stalin
for the Russian culture ministry is much more important than Emperor Nicholas
II and the feelings of believers” (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=79959).

The powers that be in Moscow may
soon discover, the site suggested, that many Russians, including conservative
and Orthodox ones whom the Kremlin wants to attract to its side in advance of the
March 18 elections may feel very differently and remember on voting day what
Moscow did now.

Meanwhile, a liberal Russian commentator,
Kirill Martynov of Novaya gazeta told
Echo Moskvy that this latest ban may
highlight someething even more dangerous that just differnces on Stalin and
Nicholas II: Moscow, he suggests, is “paralyzed” by struggles in the name of
public morality because it can’t offer any real actions (echo.msk.ru/blog/partofair/2134682-echo/).